


The Early Days

by Midnight_Snow (SparkyCola3)



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, CinnamonRoll!Dirk, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, If you try to hurt my holistic cinnamon roll Martin will kick your ass, Post-Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Protective!Martin, Teen!Dirk, Vogel/Dirk Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkyCola3/pseuds/Midnight_Snow
Summary: A prompt fill for hittooclosetohome - in which Dirk escapes from Blackwing with the Rowdy 3, and they look after him while he figures out how to be free and how to deal with his experience of Blackwing.Martin is very protective of this strange British kid they brought along for the ride. Dirk is figuring out just who he is when he's not in Blackwing.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 27





	1. Day 1

The first time they broke out of Blackwing, it was Summer.

They were so excited they howled and drove and drove and hollered, Icarus and Vogel communicated in pure excitement. Gripps and Cross were not much better.

Martin drove, wondering if he'd done the right thing bringing the British kid along. He might be handy as a mobile snack but he talked _non-stop_...still. It's not as though they could have left him behind in that prison. The thought of Blackwing made his expression darken with pure hatred.

Martin didn't talk, he just listened to the excited rambling behind him.

At one point they started playing a game of "No More..."

No more cameras. No more questions. No more tests. No more Priest. No more...

Some of the contributions the kid made to the game were deeply disturbing.

No more electrocution, no more drowning, no more sleep deprivation, no more beatings, no more... that's when he understood that the kid's experience of Blackwing had been somewhat different. His boys may have been caged like animals, but no one dared go within metres of them if they didn't want to become lunch. With Icarus, they could do what they liked, and apparently they had.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly. Icarus was just a kid, he was the same age as Vogel. And he'd been stuck in that shithole for _years._ Still; they were free now.

They drove for hours and then stopped, got out, and ran around in the open space shouting at the top of their voices.

Project Incubus hadn't touched each other or anything else for such a long time, and they were naturally a tactile, physical bunch. They climbed and rolled and slapped each other on the back and hugged each other and lightly punched arms and tripped each other up.

Icarus was just the opposite... Martin figured out pretty quickly that he was extremely touch averse, tensing if anyone so much as got near him. So instead he hung back by the van with Martin, watching the others playing.

"What do you want us to call you?" Martin asked, leaning against the van.

"I don't know. _Not_ Project Icarus. I don't want to be Svlad Cjelli either." the kid pondered.

"What do you want to be?"

There was a pause while stared pensively into space.

"I want to be a detective." he announced.

"All right then detective, let's go get you some food."

They raided a 7/11 that evening, taking stocks of food and drink to fill the van.

"You just destroyed that person's shop!" the Brit said in a horrified tone

Gripps pushed the kid slightly, a little insulted. The kid tensed and closed his eyes. Martin put a hand on Gripps and gestured for him to make some space.

"We got this stuff for _you_ kid" Gripps pointed out irately. "Ain't like _we_ need to eat food!"

"Well I didn't _ask_ you to!" he kid pointed out indignantly and Martin smiled slightly at his spirit. "You can't just go around smashing people's livelihoods whenever you feel like it- you ought to go and apologise to those poor people, you probably scared them half to death!"

"Fine!" Gripps shouted, making the kid flinch. He ran back to the shop and spray-painted "Sorry" across the store front. "There." he said, as though that really made things ok, and then hopped into the van, satisfied.

"You know your own mind I'll give you that." Martin said to him while the others waited in the van.

The kid looked at the floor. "I don't want to leave a trail of death and destruction behind me." he said quietly. 

"We ain't gonna hurt nobody." Martin reassured him. "But we also ain't gonna get a desk job in a fancy office and wait for Blackwing to track us down."

The Brit looked despondently as though he rather liked the idea of a desk job in a fancy office. Martin caught his eye.

“Real world’s a big place…got a lot going on and not all of it good. Right now we need to look out for each other.” He touched his shoulder and the kid tensed.

"Cos I don’t think you’re ready to strike out on your own just yet, are ya?" he added gently, knowing his point had been made by the instinctive response.

The kid sighed, looked at the floor and silently shook his head.

"We'll keep you safe. Trust me." he nodded for him to get back in the van, which he did, and Martin went back to driving as they heard the distant sound of sirens.

Martin wondered how the kid had learned to care about complete strangers while locked up in Blackwing.

At some point in the night he climbed through to the seat next to Martin and watched the world passing, apparently unable or unwilling to go to sleep. It was as though he couldn't take his eyes off the sight of freedom even for one second, in case it disappeared.


	2. Day 2

The first time they stopped to wash in a river was the first time Martin actually saw the physical scars of what had been done to the boy. Martin didn't understand what could drive someone to want to inflict pain on a kid like him. Why you'd want to take his innate joy and crush it.

The kid was so excited to see a river, a tree, a squirrel, a rock, a bit of moss... he had so much excitement and enthusiasm for everything. And yet at other times he would suddenly tense up and be like a stray puppy that had spent its life beaten and yelled at, coiling in on himself away from the world, trying to shield himself from pain.

Dirk and Vogel were splashing each other playfully in the cool water while Cross came to stand next to him.

"Kid's had a rough ride." Cross observed, noticing the way Martin was staring at the scars on the boy's body with an increasingly dark expression. Martin just nodded, slowly.

The Brit was slight, unpredictable, and seemed hopelessly vulnerable. But he had so much heart. He seemed to radiate positive energy, determination, sunlight, and Vogel basked in it. Vogel looked at him with awe, shy admiration making him subconsciously copy him.

"I've decided on a name!" the kid announced.

"Me too!" Vogel added.

"Oh?" Martin asked with a slight smile.

The kid straightened up and said with a certain theatricality "Dirk. Gently."

"Jacob. Vogel." Vogel imitated.

"That was already your name!" Cross said, lightly punching Vogel's arm.

"Yeah. I like it. I'm gonna keep it." Vogel said with the same decisive tone employed by the Brit.

"Dirk Gently huh?" Martin said, and Dirk looked at him, aware that he was the first person to ever call him by that name and clearly getting used to the sound of it from someone else. Apparently he liked how it sounded though because he nodded with determination.

"Dirk Gently." he repeated, proudly.

"How'd you think of it?" Vogel asked. Dirk looked very pleased to be asked this question.

"Detectives need to be _tough,_ and it has a sort of...Scottish daggery feel to it, but at the same time I don't want people to think I'm a _thug_ so I thought the surname would soften it a bit. And it sounds British which is where I'm from, and it sounds like the name of a Detective which is what I am-"

"It suits you." Martin interrupted, trying to stifle a grin at the thought of anyone looking at the kid and mistaking him for a 'thug'.

"It _really_ suits you." Vogel agreed, and Dirk looked like it was his birthday and christmas in one to hear them say it.


	3. Day 3

It was the early hours of the morning when Dirk woke straight from a nightmare into a panic attack, and it disorientated him completely. The others absorbed his energy and Vogel whispered to him "It's ok Dirk. You can go back to sleep now", which he did.

But Martin didn't.

The next morning they pulled into a junk yard. Martin felt a ball of anger that he desperately needed to vent. He'd spent all night thinking of the scars that covered Dirk's body, the ways in which they must have been inflicted, the resulting damage to the kid's mental and psychological health, and the ball of rage just wouldn't go away.

The junk yard was like a playground to the boys and they whooped their way around, over piles of scrap furniture and broken machinery.

Martin pulled out a baseball bat that as far as he could see, had nothing wrong with it. He thought of the scars on Dirk's body. He thought of the fear in Dirk's eyes when he woke up. He was a good kid, Martin could see that - anyone could. He thought of the years of their lives they had all wasted locked up and he started smashing everything he could find, imagining every face at Blackwing as he did so.

Dirk found some spray paint cans and Vogel immediately copied him in decorating the van.

Gripps found spare parts that might come in handy for the van that was now their home, and Cross jumped up and down on an old car.

After half an hour or so Martin had calmed down, but found that the others were rampaging through the scrap yard with unstoppable enthusiasm, Cross and Vogel having joined in. He looked for Dirk, but deep down he knew the kid didn't have a violent bone in his body. Their desire to smash things just confused him.

He sensed something wrong, and suddenly didn't like not having sight of him, so he followed the scent of Dirk's emotions to an area not far from the van, to a weedy patch of grass where he found him.

Martin knelt down in front of the boy, who was sat cross-legged holding a pigeon very gently in his hands.

"She's hurt." he said, with a hitch in his voice. "I found her but I think I'm too late."

Martin looked at the bird, which was half obscured by blood-matted feathers and dirt, with one wing twitching uncontrollably.

"She ain't gonna make it." he observed carefully. "Here." he took the bird's energy and stopped her suffering.

Dirk stared at the dead bird in his hand, which Martin took from him, dug a quick hole, put her in and covered her up again. He found a rock, polished it slightly on his jacket, and placed it as a marker over the small ad-hoc grave.

Dirk watched the whole thing, and then burst into tears, hugging his knees to his chest.

Martin watched him with a frown of worry. How had this kid survived being tortured in a military prison for years? It hadn't hardened him at all, he was so full of natural empathy.

"Hey" he said, touching his knee lightly, but Dirk scrambled back like he'd been burned.

"No no no..." he shook his head, " _please..."_

The desperate anguish in that one word broke Martin's heart.

"Please don't hurt me any more I'm _trying_ I swear I'm trying I'm trying...please..."

His panic had attracted the others as he started hyperventilating and at a nod from Martin, they absorbed his panic, leaving the kid looking breathless, exhausted, and numb.

"Come on, let's get back on the road." Martin said sadly.

Vogel helped Dirk up and for once, the kid didn't flinch away but allowed him to help. Perhaps he was just too tired, but Martin liked to think there was more to it. Just maybe Dirk had come to think of Vogel, in all his puppy-like friendliness, as unthreatening.

"I'm sorry." Dirk muttered, not looking at him.

"You got nothing to be sorry for." Martin said firmly. "You listen to me Detective, you better not let them fuck with your mind." he finally caught Dirk's eyes. "It's not your fault they hurt you, and they don't get to make you feel guilty about it. "

Dirk straightened slightly and nodded with resolve.

Damn it. Martin was really starting to like this kid. And somehow he knew, could feel it in the energy from Dirk, from the Universe, from the space around them... there was a separateness that was inevitable. He knew Dirk would go his own way at some point and the thought filled Martin with dread. He vowed to delay that time as long as possible, and until then, keep him safe, and perhaps try to shore up his defences in preparation for a hostile, dangerous world. 


	4. Day 4

"I don't think we should go that way." Dirk said. Martin hadn't known he was awake, he'd had another nightmare last night and they had absorbed his energy. The others had put him in the front to let him sleep the rest of the night without disturbing him. 

"Fastest route" Martin grunted and Dirk said nothing to that, just sighed a little. 

After about 3 miles they came across an overturned lorry which had closed the road, and had to turn around back the way they'd come.

"That's your thing, huh?" Martin asked, glancing sideways at him.

Dirk nodded hesitantly. He obviously didn't want to talk about it, and immediately started talking about something else, about how they should stop somewhere and eat all the things they weren't allowed to eat in Blackwing like pizza and fast food and anything sweet. He'd forgotten what ice cream tasted like, and pancakes with maple syrup...and scones with jam and cream...

They stopped off at a park for some air. Vogel climbed a tree and the branch snapped off, but he rolled away like a bouncy ball impervious to harm and ran over to Dirk who had ambled apparently aimlessly towards a bin, and fished out a piece of paper.

"What's that?" Vogel asked, pointing to the leaflet in Dirk's hands.

"It's a leaflet for a Mediaeval Fair in a place called Raleigh, happening in a couple of days' time"

"What's that?" Vogel repeated, feeling none the wiser.

"I have no idea. But I get the feeling I'm supposed to... go there?" he said cautiously.

"Why?"

"All good questions." Dirk nodded thoughtfully. "There's only one way to find out" he said brightly.

"Can we go to a rally Martin?" Vogel asked on Dirk's behalf.

"Or rather... _to_ Raleigh, North Carolina." Dirk corrected.

"Think they'll let me joust?" Cross wondered.

Martin shrugged. "You wanna visit North Carolina, we'll go visit North Carolina."

He didn't say it out loud, but he liked that it was a long way away from Blackwing. Dirk looked gratefully at him. Dirk always looked like he expected to be left behind at any moment and was constantly thankful to be tolerated.

Martin felt like he was in some kind of psychological battle with Blackwing for the boy, and he was damned if he was going to let Blackwing win. Dirk didn't belong in that endless nightmare, he belonged with them; free, happy, and safe.

Dirk hadn't thought Martin had been listening earlier to his idle daydreaming of food, he was used to one-sided conversations so it didn't stop him. But three hours into their roadtrip, Martin stopped at a pancake house. It was the best thing Dirk had eaten in a long, long time.


	5. Day 5

"I'm starting to notice an acceleration of strangeness in my life." Dirk noted, as he held three identical leaflets for the mediaeval fair that seemed to keep coming his way. He'd also happened across a London A-Z which had the initials 'DG' on the inside cover along with an address.

Martin had to admit that was a little unusual, although he wasn't quite so interested in theorising and analysing the situation as Dirk seemed intent on doing.

He liked to see Dirk happily engaged in a hobby, a puzzle that kept his mind off other things. And yet, he couldn't shake off the fear that the kid just wasn't ready for the real world yet. Wasn't ready to take on a 'case' or whatever this thing was. It was too soon. He still had nightmares every single night, sometimes more than one. Last night he'd had a nightmare so bad he had woken up, run outside and been violently sick. It was possible the number of pancakes and waffles he'd eaten the day before had been a contributing factor, but even so...

Martin knew what kind of trauma he was trying to work through, and there was only so much they could do to help him. No one else would understand the Brit like they did. He was one of them, and Martin wanted to keep him close by where he could keep an eye on him.

That afternoon was rather a case in point.

Dirk had been ordering food while the others waited at a table. He got to the front of the McDonalds queue and said: “You don’t happen to serve tea do you?”

The cashier answered in the negative so Dirk asked for lemonade instead. The man behind him spoke:

“You here from England?”

“I am.” Dirk answered, turning round to the man, and finding him with his arm around the waist of a much younger woman.

“Are you and your grand-daughter local?”

The man bristled and said coldly: “This is my _wife_.”

“Oh. Is that a trend these days? I haven’t been keeping up with things much lately, been a bit out of the loop. I suppose love is love”

The man looked mollified by this until Dirk turned to his wife.

“It is rather _interesting_ thought that you would fall in love with someone so much, _much_ older than you. May I ask what it is that-“

The man raised his hand and Dirk stepped back, freezing suddenly to the spot. Martin had come from nowhere and now held the man’s arm in a tight grip, in mid air.

“You lay a hand on the boy and I’ll rip your head off. Do you understand?” he said very quietly into the man’s ear.

“Sir?” the cashier signalled to Dirk, who took the bag of food handed to him with a faint smile of thanks.

“Let’s go.” Martin said and they returned to the van.

“I must have said something to upset him.” Dirk said shakily when they got back to the van.

Cross shrugged. “Told him the truth.”

“Perhaps…the truth upsets people sometimes” Dirk reasoned doubtfully.

“Who knows, people are weird.” Cross said philosophically. “Can’t explain why they do things.”

Dirk shook his head. “Everything is connected. I made him angry.”

“Doesn’t matter if you made him angry.” Martin said firmly. “He ain’t got no right to lay a hand on you. No one has. You got that?”

Dirk looked confused by this and lapsed into deep thought.

“You’ll get the hang of it.” Martin settled on. After a minute or two Dirk said, as though testing the theory to himself very quietly:

“No one has a right to hurt me.”

“Got it in one.” Martin said drily, wishing it was something Dirk had always known rather than only just figured out.

They continued their drive to North Carolina.


	6. Day 6

They had been at the Mediaeval Fair for about 15 minutes when Dirk stopped suddenly.

"Oh my GOD" Dirk said with horror.

"What is it?" Vogel asked him with alarm.

"I just realised these people are trying to do English accents." Dirk said, looking around him at the mediaeval fair with repulsion.

"Not everyone can do one as good as me." Vogel shrugged. Dirk looked at him sceptically so Vogel straightened and said:

"Oim gawna boy you a point of ale me ole geezer"

Dirk stared at him, with an appalled expression. "Is that how you think I sound?" he asked in astonishment

Vogel erupted into giggles. He tried again.

"Oim a Bri-ish detective Oi Am"

His laughter was contagious as Dirk started laughing too.

"Please promise me you will never, EVER do that again" he said seriously once he'd caught his breath.

Martin watched them with amusement. Vogel was grinning at Dirk with a blush of happiness, pleased that he had been the one to make Dirk laugh, just for a moment. He got just a sense that maybe there was more to Vogel's feelings for the Brit than met the eye and smiled slightly.

They had a look round the fair. After an hour or so, Cross won an axe throwing event and handed a large fluffy animal to Vogel – which is when Martin noticed that Dirk was no longer with them.

“Where’s Detective?” he asked and Vogel looked confused.

“He was just here a second ago…”

Dirk was following an interesting looking person to a secluded area of the fair. The reason he was interesting was the striking resemblance he bore to Dirk himself, and the reason for following him was because the universe wanted him to.

Dirk followed him into an underpass and jumped when the man leapt out at him.

“Why are you following me?!” he snapped.

"Oh, hi! I’m Dirk Gently" Dirk said in what he hoped was a friendly tone. "Have you noticed how much we look like each other? It’s interesting don’t you think – we could be related. Do you think we're related?"

The man illustrated his lack of interest in family history by pulling out a gun and Dirk put his hands up. "You're right it's not really any of my business" he said quickly, backing away. He was about to question the historical authenticity of the gun, but the man grabbed him and slammed him against a wall, pointing the gun in his face, so he decided not to mention it.

"Who the fuck are you?"

In years to come, Dirk would become accustomed to this type of situation. That’s not to say he wouldn’t still find it utterly terrifying to be come face to face with his own mortality…but he would retain enough presence of mind to try and talk his way out of it.

At this point in his career, all he could think about was Mr Priest; he shut his eyes and forgot to breathe as he tensed up and felt himself shaking like a leaf in an earthquake.

Which is how Martin found them. He grabbed the man with the gun and threw him across the tarmac in fury, far away from Dirk, who collapsed into a ball.

He started venting his anger on this person who had dared to threaten Dirk, who represented every piece of shit who thought they had a right to hurt the kid.

He was so absorbed that he almost didn’t hear the tentative voice behind him.

"Don't kill him! Please..."

Martin stopped, looking at the pale young detective who was watching them with concern. He grunted, absorbed some of the man's energy, but not enough to kill him, and left him unconscious.

Dirk found a red plastic disk on the floor and had a hunch that he should pick it up, so he did.

Martin looked at him evaluatingly for a moment.

“Come on, let’s get you some water.” Martin said to the dazed looking kid, who nodded vaguely in response.

They went to the main building for the fair where the reception and toilets were.

“Sir, I’m afraid we can’t hold your luggage any longer, we’ll be closing in 15 minutes.” a young woman informed him, standing over a large suitcase on wheels.

“Oh. I-“

“Do you have the token?” she said, and Dirk looked down at the red coin he’d picked up. She took it from him and handed him the luggage before he could object.

“Thank you. Have a good day.” She said and then disappeared.

He shrugged and took the luggage, feeling it was what the universe wanted him to do.

In the van Dirk changed clothes using the clothes he found in the suitcase, blue trousers, white shirt, and a vibrant green leather jacket that looked like it would glow in the dark.

"What do you think?" he said obviously pleased with the perfectly fitting, clean, colourful clothes that were about as far from Blackwing standard issue as it was possible to get.

"Looks good." Gripps said approvingly and Dirk beamed at him. "Here.." he moved towards Dirk who instinctively drew away from him, but Gripps pretended not to notice as he took a tie out of the suitcase and gestured for Dirk to take one.

Gripps illustrated how to tie it and Dirk copied him as best he could, practising a few times until he got it right.

Gripps nodded approvingly and then made his own tie into a bandana. Dirk had picked one that was dark blue with bright green limes on it and it completed his look perfectly.

"Thank you." he said in admiration of this hidden talent and Gripps shrugged it off modestly.

“I finally look like an _actual_ detective” Dirk said with satisfaction.

He continued rifling through the things in the suitcase until he found a folder of documents and looked through it.

He went quiet, deep in thought.

“You detecting something?” Martin asked. For all that he had originally thought the kid talked too much, now he preferred it to when he went too quiet.

“It’s a passport, and a plane ticket for tomorrow.” Dirk said, hesitantly. “To London”

“Where’s that?” Vogel asked.

“It’s in England – it’s…home.” Dirk said quietly. “I think… no I am _certain_ – the universe wants me to get this flight tomorrow.”

Martin clenched his jaw. He knew it would happen at some point – but so soon? They couldn’t follow Dirk to England. It just wouldn’t work. But… Martin wasn’t ready to let the kid go. The thought of him out there on his own, where they couldn’t protect him…

And the kid just wasn’t ready either. He had no idea what this world was like. Even if he wasn’t trying to deal with years of imprisonment, violence, physical and psychological abuse – even without all that he would be dangerously naïve in a hostile world, trying to navigate through on his own. But he _did_ have all that to deal with on top.

“Perhaps there’s a case in England I have to work on” Dirk continued, not looking at them.

“How come the universe don’t want you to stay with us?” Gripps said, as though offended by the universe’s implication.

“I suppose…” Dirk said “I suppose I’m not really one of you” he shrugged.

“Course you are.” Martin said without hesitation.

“But if we’re not there… you’ll be all alone” Vogel said.

“Well, I’m used to that.” Dirk said sadly, looking down.

“But Dirk!” Vogel insisted urgently. “If we’re not there and you get scared or upset or-“

“Then I’ll just have to be scared or upset.” Dirk interrupted, obviously not wanting to dwell on the terrifying thought of having to deal with everything on his own, but resolute that it was the only option.

Vogel sent a pleading look at Martin to fix this. Martin sent a sympathetic look back at him, but he knew, as Dirk did, that there was no arguing with the will of the universe. Doing so only ended up with the same result through a much harder path.

“But what if someone _hurts_ you” Vogel said, swiping away a couple of tears.

“Don’t- don’t be sad” Dirk said, despite looking like he was about to cry himself. He looked helplessly at Vogel. “I’ll be all right Vogel, really. I’m going home! I…I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me and I’ll miss you all terribly. But I can look after myself – I mean, I probably can. Well, I won’t know until I try I suppose. But I have to try. I have to try and make this work somehow…. Go to England and be a detective and help people. It’s… “he took a deep breath. “It’s what I want.” He ended with determination.

Martin really wished he hadn’t come to like this kid so much. He wished even more that Vogel hadn’t, too.

“I’ll only be across the pond anyway Vogel.” Dirk added, looking guilty. Vogel nodded, still sniffling quietly.

He looked at Martin who hadn’t yet commented on the decision.

“Please don’t be… _angry_ with me.” He said cautiously.

“I ain’t never angry at you.” Martin said. He looked at the suitcase, the ‘coincidences’ that had led up to this moment. Dirk coming across the passport, the luggage, the plane ticket of a man who just happened to look just like him. “I understand.” He said. He didn’t like it, but he understood.

“Thank you.” Dirk said.


	7. Day 7

They were quiet on the way to the airport. When they got there and it was time, Dirk turned to them, and had never looked more separate.

“Do you have to go?” Vogel asked for the 50th time. Dirk nodded regretfully at him.

“We got plenty of room and I’m sure there’s plenty of cases this side of the water.” Martin said, not sure what had compelled him to try one last time.

"Thank you but... I have to go my own way. The universe is insisting on it. Besides…” Dirk added blushing slightly “I think you may be a little too.... _rowdy_ for me" he said with an apologetic smile.

"Rowdy huh?" Martin said with a smile. "I like that."

There was a flash of worry which he covered up quickly as he said "Maybe we'll see you around Detective Dirk Gently."

Dirk's eyes filled with tears slightly and apparently inhibited his ability to speak because he just nodded.

As though reading his mind... Dirk took a deep breath and said "I'll be ok."

Vogel barrelled into him with a hug, making Dirk jump, but he managed not to panic at the sudden physical contact.

“I’ll miss you.” Vogel said plainly.

“I’ll miss all of you too.” Dirk said hoarsely. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to…to a _family_. Thank you for…well, for everything.”

And with that, he waved one last time and went through security out of sight.

They were in a sullen mood when they returned to the van.

"Van feels empty without the kid." Gripps said moodily.

Vogel said nothing but could be heard sniffling morosely.

"Ain’t the same." Cross agreed.

"Brit's going home to Brit-land." Martin said firmly. "He'll be ok." he added, more softly, and more to himself than anyone else. "Kid'll be just fine."

“How do you know?” Vogel asked.

“Cos the universe knows if he ain’t ok it’ll have us to deal with. And the Universe knows better than to fuck with us. Ain’t that right boys?”

The boys enthusiastically agreed to this, and started to make vague threats to the universe on behalf of Dirk’s safety. It was nearly enough to stop the aching feeling of worry he felt when he thought of Dirk, but not quite.

If sheer determination could ensure a person's safety, then Martin was sure Dirk _would_ be ok. He understood that Dirk was much stronger and more resilient than he looked. But he also understood that there were a million different ways he could be hurt, and the universe seemed set on making him learn everything the hard way. He sighed.

Maybe one day their paths would cross again. Maybe one day they'd take down Blackwing once and for all. Maybe one day Dirk would return to his place in the van and Martin would be able to watch out for him in person. Until then he had a certain rowdy 3 to look after.


End file.
